The Colorado Department of Corrections has proposed using the vacant Huerfano County Correctional Facility in Walsenburg to ease overcrowding in the state prison system. State Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, is in full support of reopening the Walsenburg prison and expects the legislative Joint Budget Committee to recognize the need for it.

The budget committee recommended last August that the full Legislature approve earmarking $10.6 million to temporarily open a prison and let the DOC hire an additional 70 staff to work there. Upon further review last week, the committee ordered more detailed cost estimates since the DOC also requests a larger, unspecified amount of funding to renovate another vacant prison – Colorado State Penitentiary II.

“We need them both – reopening Huerfano and CSPII – just to deal with the coming (prison) population,” Crowder said. He referred to the latest projections that the state prison population could grow by 1,100 inmates, which he said would be covered by using 250 beds at Huerfano and filling the 825-bed CSPII east of Canon City.

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